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A Tulsa County judge partially released a batch of documents Wednesday to The Frontier related to Tulsa police disciplinary records.

Tulsa County District Judge Caroline Wall agreed to withhold six remaining documents after the Tulsa County Fraternal Order of Police argued in court the records should not be released. The Fraternal Order of Police argued those records, which showed punishment that resulted only in the loss of vacation time, didn’t fall under the state’s open records law. The Frontier’s legal representation received the six documents under a protective order for “attorney eyes only.” 

After last week’s hearing, Wall allowed Sean McKenna, the legal representative for Tulsa’s Fraternal Order of Police, to review the remaining pages under a protective order. He only objected to the remaining six pages being released to The Frontier. 

The city had already given The Frontier 130 pages of records before the police union took legal action. Wall said she didn’t see anything “specifically different” between the first batch of records and the final six documents.

McKenna told Wall the remaining records should have been expunged “therefore they should no longer exist.” 

The police union believes the City of Tulsa was supposed to purge and expunge the records from the officer’s disciplinary file per its collective bargaining agreement. The city argued the records are releasable under the Oklahoma Open Records Act because the loss of vacation was in lieu of a two-day suspension. If a suspension is two days or less, the officer could choose to lose accrued vacation time over suspension.

“The city believes they should be released,” Lawson Vaughn, attorney for the city said. 

McKenna disagreed, stating loss of vacation time is different from suspension because it doesn’t show up on the officer’s paycheck. 

Wall scheduled another hearing for June 4 after which the remaining records could be released.

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